Old Chinese Man Beaten to Death For Criticizing “Chengguan”

Follow-Up to 70-Year-Old Elderly Person Suspected of Being Beaten to Death By Chengguan While Trying to Break Up a Fight: Officials Claim Those Who Beat Him Were Xieguan Community Stewards

Jinghua Times report — Yesterday morning, after a netizen posted a “a 70-year-old elderly person who kindly begged chengguan city management personnel to be civil in their law enforcement was instead beaten to death” microblog post, it was reshared over 10,000 times within just half a day. In response to this, a representative for the Fuzhou Municipal Party Committee Propaganda Department of Fujian province stated that yesterday morning, a villager of Fuzhou city Mawei district Tingjiang town Xibian village clashed with a xieguan community steward near the farmer’s market, died after falling to the ground, and that the person who beat him was not a chengguan officer.

[Note: Xieguan are essentially “assistants” to chengguan, auxiliary personnel who are not technically chengguan but often work with chengguan in enforcing urban regulations.]

Yesterday morning at 9:48am, netizen “ThanksMonica” posted a microblog post claiming: “This morning at the Tingjiang market, when chengguan were making things difficult for a vegetable peddler, a 60-year-old elder person who kindly intervened was instead beaten to death by the chengguan. Right now, relatives are around him crying.” The 9 photographs of the scene attached by the netizen showed that the scene was full of gathered bystanders, with several middle-aged women crying bitterly supported by the crowd, and a body covered with a bed sheet on the ground. About an hour later, this netizen once again posted on Weibo saying: “Reporters, forensics, and criminal investigators have all arrived. Two chengguan chased and beat the elderly person over several dozen meters, with an eyewitness saying one of the chengguan had choked the elderly person by the neck, while the other beat the old man with his fists.” From this netizen’s second set of photos of the scene, it can be seen that the scene has already been sealed off with police tape, with both police and emergency medical personnel on the scene. In just a short half-day, this Weibo post had been forwarded over 10,000 times, commented over 2000 times, with netizens one after another expressing anger with the chengguan‘s actions.

The Weibo microblog account of the local media also verified this incident. According to Haixia City Newspaper‘s official Weibo, what their reporter on the scene has already learned is: after chengguan and a vegetable peddler had a small clash, an elderly person went forward to intervene, and it is suspected that he died despite medical attention on the scene after being beaten by the chengguan. The elderly person was 70 years old this year, a local.

Yesterday afternoon at 5pm, this Jinghua Times reporter attempted to contact the Fuzhou city Mawei district Chengguan Enforcement Office to verify this matter but without success. A staff member of the Fuzhou Municipal Party Committee Propaganda Department News Office said that this matter is not as it was has been circulated on the internet, that the person who did the beating is not chengguan. Other than this, a government notice says: Tingjiang town Xibian Village villager Zheng Xiuyuan (male, 70 years old) clashed with community stewards near the Tingtou farmer’s market and died after falling on the ground.

China.com April 10 report — According to a report by Legal Evening News, 68-year-old Zheng Xiuyuan raised criticisms of the work of community stewards next to the Fuzhou city Mawei district Tingjiang farmer’s market yesterday and was then violently beaten to death by the two community stewards. In the morning, Zheng Xiuyuan’s younger brother Zheng Xiuyong said the Tingjiang town government has already reached a written agreement with the family to give 600,000 yuan as compensation for the wrongful death within 7 days. At present, the family is preparing to file a lawsuit against the community stewards.

Fauna is a mysterious young Shanghainese girl who lives in the only place a Shanghainese person would ever want to live: Shanghai. In mid-2008, she started chinaSMACK to combine her hobby of browsing Chinese internet forums with her goal of improving her English. Through her tireless translation of popular Chinese internet news and phenomenon, her English has apparently gotten dramatically better. At least, reading and writing-wise. Unfortunately, she's still not confident enough to have written this bio, about herself, by herself.